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The Rev Canon Dr Chris Sugden explains how 2025 might pan out and notes developments that could encourage evangelicals.   By Chris Sugden www.virtueonline.org March 14, 2025   With the resignation of Archbishop Welby, the Archbishop of York under a cloud due to a failure in safeguarding and the C of E riven with doctrinal differences, chiefly over the desire of many bishops to bless same-sex unions what might lie ahead? At the time of writing some matters look clear. What has taken place already is that Archbishop Welby introduced a centralized management process into the Church of England. He also sought to preserve what he called unity by making concessions to a small but powerful elite lobby pressing for same sex relationships to be blessed and recognised in church services, and for clergy to enter same-sex marriage.   Because of this step, on the global stage he forfeited the allegiance of many Anglican Primates ( the senior Archbishops in a country), representing between them the majority of Anglicans around the world, who have refused to acknowledge his office as the senior office in the Anglican Communion. It has been formally recommended by an international Anglican body that his successor as leader of the world’s Anglican Archbishops should not be the Archbishop of Canterbury but be chosen from the Primates.   In response here in England, The Alliance, a network of orthodox clergy and lay leaders from the Holy Trinity Brompton (Alpha Course) network, the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC), Church Society, ReNew, New Wine, Forward in Faith (an Anglo-Catholic High Church network) and Living Out (people with same-sex attraction who live celibate lives) have come together representing a majority of the churchgoers in the Church of England. The objective of the Alliance is to achieve a parallel province in which orthodox congregations and clergy can be ‘overseen’ by orthodox bishops who stand for the traditional Anglican and biblical teaching on sex and marriage. Despite the managerial moves in recent years the Church of England is not a centralised church. Each parish is ‘independent’ and receives oversight and fellowship from its diocese.   Some members of the Church of England have left the national church to form separate congregations, but remain Anglicans. They are part of the Anglican Network in Europe (ANIE)which has its own bishops. They are recognised by many Anglican Primates around the world. Their departure indicates significant disagreement with the same-sex blessings that have been allowed to take place and their future development. But this cannot be a complete solution. It is far from certain that the General Synod and the House of Bishops would agree to recognise them. Many parish church congregations are central to their local community life, they are in general orthodox, and many would be unhappy to receive any sort of ‘flying bishop’ other than their area or diocesan bishop. While there may be internal disagreements over same-sex blessings, they will not vote to leave the Church of England.   Up to now what the House of Bishops have been doing is to present a series of proposals to allow for same-sex blessings in a separate church service, for same-sex marriages to take place in church and for clergy to be allowed to enter same sex marriages. Up to now all that is allowed is that since December 2023 prayers for same sex couples can take place in a regular service of worship. The bishops’ plan has been to get the General Synod to vote to accept all their proposals by a simple majority.   The objection to this is that such changes represent a change in the Church of England’s doctrine of marriage. A change of doctrine requires a two thirds majority in all three ‘houses’ of the Synod, bishops, clergy and lay people. The bishops know they will not be able to secure this because at least a third or more of laity and probably of the clergy members of Synod are against such a change.   Just this last month a press release from the House of Bishops indicated a delay in their process, noting that any proposals will not be ready for presentation in July. The most likely reason for this is that the orthodox bishops in the ‘house’ have stood firm in their objections at the first meeting which will not have been chaired by Archbishop Welby. Meanwhile speculation has developed about who will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. The elite gay lobby is understood to be pushing the candidature of Bishop Guli Francis-Deqani, the Iranian-born British Bishop of Chelmsford since 2021, who would be the first woman Archbishop. She is known to be in favour of same-sex marriages.   What matters now is that the members of the Alliance, the orthodox bishops and clergy should remain firm in their stand for the biblical teaching and practice. Some parishes have gone so far as to only send to the dioceses the money they receive back for paying their clergy. This is causing some dioceses significant financial pressure. Some parishes have taken advantage of the overseers commissioned by The Alliance to provide oversight in place of their own ‘heterodox’ diocesan bishops.   But some evangelical clergy have been hesitant to take a stand as they want to be ‘nice’ to everyone and remain united. But as Canon John Dunnett the Executive Officer of the CEEC has written: “The question still remains as to ‘unity in or around what’. The unity that Jesus prayed for was not institutional. The unity that Jesus prayed for was not around the status quo. And unity in Scripture always goes hand-in-hand with truth. CEEC is absolutely committed to unity across cultures, continents and centuries with all those who hold to the apostolic faith as we have received it.”   The Rev. Canon Dr. Chris Sugden is chair of Anglican Mainstream, an orthodox network and website www. anglicanmainstream.org founded in 2003 to uphold biblical teaching,  especially on sex and marriage. He is a Canon in the Anglican churches of both Nigeria and Ghana. He was part of the organising team of the first Global Anglican Future Conference in 2008.

COMMENTARY By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org March 14, 2025   The penny has finally dropped. The new Episcopal Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe has looked in the mirror and admitted the Church has no future if it doesn’t plant new churches.   When the Episcopal Church declared a “Decade of Evangelism” in the 1990s it was hoped the church would jump start, moving away from the slide. In 2003, the development of new congregations was identified as one priority in a series of proposals, known as the “20/20 Vision,” that set even more ambitious goals, including doubling church membership by 2020. It all flopped.   Both presiding bishops Frank Griswold and Michael Curry conceded that they didn’t know what to do and shrugged it off. “But if this church should wither away, the movement that Jesus began will not go away,” conceded Curry in a moment of illumination. Katharine Jefferts Schori said the church needs to face its fears and embrace an unknown future. Rowe expressed skepticism toward those past efforts to grow the church and rightly so.   “The Decade of Evangelism, how’d that work? Not well,” Rowe said Feb. 26 in a keynote conversation at the Episcopal Parish Network conference in Kansas City, Missouri. “We spent 10 years on evangelism. That’s a good thing. But we have no idea why that didn’t work,” reported ENS.   I can tell you. The church did not have a message then or now to proclaim that which didn’t echo the culture. Planting and growing churches on themes of diversity, inclusion, pansexuality, anti-racism, LGBTQ acceptance and full-on gay marriage hasn’t planted one church. The Episcopal Church has steadily been eroding for over half a century and now has just over 400,000 weekly Sunday attendance out of a total membership of 1,547,779.   The elevation of homosexual priest Gene Robinson to the episcopacy split the church from which it has never recovered. And by all accounts it never will.   But the new presiding bishop is going to give it the old school try.   As a churchwide realignment begins to take shape, three Episcopal priests and others who spoke to ENS say they are worried about the future of their network and denominational support. “That network has been absolutely crucial in my ongoing formation as a priest, as a disciple, and I can’t imagine myself doing any of the things we’re trying here without the ongoing support of this nationwide cohort,” one of the priests told Episcopal News Service.   ENS reports that recent examples of church-planting starts are plentiful across The Episcopal Church, from a family-friendly dinner church in the Diocese of Georgia to an Episcopal community serving the unhoused in the Diocese of Western Oregon. Innovative Episcopal clergy have launched more than 200 new worshiping communities since 2000 – many of them in the past decade, during which The Episcopal Church has awarded more than $9 million in grants to support that work while developing and expanding its churchwide infrastructure. No figures were immediately available on how many of those new worshiping communities remain active today.   $9 million!!! The total current assets of the ACNA for 2023 which has over 1,000 parishes is a tad over $1 million dollars!   REALIGNMENT EPISCOPAL STYLE   But changes are underway. The priests involved in this work, who already were uncertain about the status of an additional $2.2 million budgeted for church planting and revitalization in 2025-27, told ENS they are eager for clarifying details about Presiding Bishop Sean Rowe’s plan to realign churchwide operations to better serve dioceses.   Last month, Rowe laid off 14 churchwide staff members in the first phase of his restructuring plan, including the two church employees who have developed and overseen the network of Episcopal church planters: the Rev. Tom Brackett, manager for church planting and mission development, and the Rev. Katie Nakamura Rengers, staff officer for church planting.   Though church planting is one of the departments being reorganized or phased out, “our commitment to church planting and redevelopment is undiminished,” Rowe said in a Feb. 20 letter to the church outlining the structural realignment. “In the months to come, we will be reorganizing this ministry and the ways it supports and serves our dioceses.”   The changes also could impact the churchwide grant program that invests in new congregations. It is facilitated each triennium by an advisory board, which has not yet been appointed for this cycle. Rowe says he and House of Deputies President Julia Ayala Harris are now working on those appointments, which were on hold until the staff realignment, ENS reported.   In a March 10 Zoom interview with ENS, Rowe affirmed that he is not abandoning the church’s ongoing investment in church planting. He said the detailed way forward will be worked out through collaborative conversations with dioceses and the priests who have been active in the churchwide network.   So, you have two pivots for church planting. How ironic that the Church of England is facing the same crisis with funding new church plants. An ambitious target of planting 10,000 new, predominantly lay-led churches by 2030 headlines the recommendations of a briefing paper issued by the Church of England’s Vision and Strategy group. The church-planting initiative’s leader, the Rev. Canon John McGinley of New Wine, touched off a firestorm of criticism when he labeled stipendiary clergy, church buildings, and theological college training as “limiting factors” for growth at a recent church planting conference.   When asked whether the former structure had not been meeting the church’s needs, Rowe emphasized a new diocese-centered approach “rather than us running some kind of parallel structure” at the churchwide level.   But the tension between diocesan versus national church support for church plants is there, with ENS reporting a number of complaints about how the process will work out.   “How can we help dioceses realize their local vision for church planting, for redevelopment at the local level?” Rowe said. “I think it will allow for more effective use of resources over the long run. … That’s to be determined, but I think what we want to do is have more integration.”   IT’S THE MESSAGE, STUPID.   But the real issue is whether church planting is simply about institutional survival or something else. It must be about evangelism, discipleship, and community engagement if it is to grow and survive. None of which TEC bishops, clergy and laity are good at. Gay and lesbian bishops do not plant churches.   Telling people God loves them unconditionally without the corollary of God’s hatred of sin, and the need for confession, repentance, and a turning towards God, will only produce a sinner without salvation.   Here is the usual Episcopal cant about the church: “One invitation is a call to cultural humility in mission. How might we shift from expansion to incarnation – showing up, listening and co-creating with local communities? How do we look afresh where God is already at work and join in? I think that this is one way we can approach church planting and redevelopment, one where people don’t have to leave behind their cultures and histories to belong.”   None of the above issues plants or builds a church. Do your think if John Stott, (one of Britain’s foremost Anglican preachers) had tried to start churches talking about “cultural humility”, “expansion to incarnation” and “listening and co-creating with local communities” that a single church would have been born?   What about Christ’s atoning death, the reality of our sinfulness, the hope of heaven for those willing to bow the knee to Him who alone saves. Do you think millions of Nigerian Anglicans give a damn about “cultural humility” facing Islam and persecution head on, along with the inroads of homosexuality pushed by the West onto their culture?   If TEC continues along its present lines, no amount of money on new church plants will save it. It will be millions of dollars spent and lost, and then cometh the end.   END

Anglican Watch March 12, 2025   Corrupt Episcopal bishop Todd Ousley, recently released from his previous role as Bishop for Pastoral Development, has been elected bishop provisional of the faltering Diocese of Wyoming. The news comes despite Ousley’s deliberate mishandling of multiple Title IV clergy disciplinary cases involving Episcopal bishops, in which Ousley asserted that he could ignore the provisions of Title IV at his discretion.   Instead, Ousley contends that bishops can disregard Title IV at any time they wish because they can address complaints pastorally.   We and others have parsed those claims extensively so that we won’t revisit the matter at length. Instead, we note three key points:   There is no support in the canons for Ousley’s claim. Under the canons, pastoral response is supposed to be one of the key priorities in any Title IV matter—which is telling, as Ousley has a history of ignoring the pastoral needs of complainants in Title IV cases, as evidenced by his abysmal handling of the Whayne Hougland debacle. That, even as Ousley gasses on about the “lofty goals” of Title IV. Ousley must have been really busy with all those pastoral responses since he left a multi-year backlog of unaddressed Title IV complaints waiting for his almost equally feckless successor, Barb Kempf. In other words, the reality is that most Title IV complaints involving Episcopal bishops went to die in Ousley’s inbox, never to be seen again.   New issues with Ousley: Violations of Title IV confidentiality Meanwhile, in his efforts to bag himself a sweetheart deal and continue his six-figure pay via his Wyoming gig, Ousley made a series of videos that purported to address concerns about his suitability for the job. The reality is that these videos are an alarming illustration of what looks suspiciously like a bad case of clinical narcissism.   Ousley’s videos share some common themes, including:   His use of narcissistic puffery about the “lofty goals” of Title IV. His insistence that he can ignore the Title IV canons. His disturbing efforts to trash or discredit the complainants in several Title IV cases that have rightly damaged his reputation. Additionally, Ousley is now the subject of a Title IV complaint originating from these videos, which involves the unauthorized disclosure of details of a Title IV case against him, which Anglican Watch editor Eric Bonetti filed against him.   Thus, Ousley’s videos are all too typical for him, reflecting a narcissistic disconnect between his babble about lofty goals and his thoroughly not-so-lofty behavior.   What next? All of that begs the question: What next for the Diocese of Wyoming?   As things stand, more than a third of delegates to the Wyoming special convention voted against Ousley. That should, if nothing else, be a warning to Ousley to tread carefully, work hard, and leave the games at home.   That said, Ousley will start his new gig sometime in April.   In the meantime, Anglican Watch and others will continue to fiercely resist Ousley and his corruption. Yes, people can and do change, but past performance is indeed a reliable bellwether of future results, and Ousley has repeatedly shown us who and what he is.   Or, to paraphrase Maya Angelou, “If you’re not prepared to believe someone the first time they show you who they are, maybe by the second or third time you should take them seriously.”   Relatedly, we want to call out another of Ousley’s lies, which is his claim that he has no conflicts due to his role in the Title IV case involving the previous bishop diocesan. That is horsesh*t.   All we can in that regard is that, if he indeed was following Title IV, yes, Ousley had a conflict. Indeed, as intake officer, he was one of three persons responsible for referring the matter, so he was in a decision-making role.   Moreover, as intake officer, Ousley was expressly prohibited under church canons (effective January 1, 2025) from providing any pastoral response in a Title IV case. And prior to that time, as Ousley should well have known, any such role was strongly discouraged.   So, we are left with a situation in which the Diocese of Wyoming now has approved a bishop provisional who has expressly stated that he continues to believe he has the authority to usurp the will of General Convention and the larger church. And we see the church continuing to coddle and protect a bishop with a dismal track record and an arrogant commitment to clericalism of the worst sort.   We hope that our sisters and brothers in Wyoming don’t wind up being hurt spiritually by Ousley’s presence.   Our fear, however, is that the sort of harm caused by clergy like Ousley is narcissistic in origin, meaning that it’s often difficult to detect, and even harder to address. And let’s face it: The denomination lacks the will or moral courage to address the harm already done by Ousley, including the profound damage resulting fromn the Hougland debacle.   If you see something, say something In the meantime, we are mindful of the perils of taking seriously the safe church training, which blithely tells Episcopalians that, if they see something questionable, they should say something. Our experience is that doing so will result in the whistleblower, like John the Baptist, getting her head served up on a silver platter.   And the Title IV protections for whistleblowers aren’t worth the paper they are written on. After all, bishops can, according to Ousley, opt for a “pastoral approach,” which in his case invariably favors the miscreant.   That said, Anglican Watch remains willing to call a spade a spade, and we protect our sources.   So, if there is even an inkling that Ousley is playing games, corruptly mishandling Title IV cases via his purported “pastoral” discretion, or otherwise engaging in misconduct, please let us know. We will do everything in our power to shine a light on Ousley’s corruption, to advocate for integrity, and to oppose spiritual or other abuse.   In the meantime, let’s hope Ousley’s tenure as bishop provisional is a short one. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark, and we fear the stench is about to get worse.   END

By Os Guinness Kildare  190pp  $16.25   Reviewed by David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org March 13, 2025   The world is fast approaching the climax of one of the great turning points in history, writes Os Guinness, a leading American social critic and committed Anglican Christian.   After nearly two millennia of existence and half a millennium of unprecedented dominance, Western civilization is on the wane and the shadows it casts are lengthening, he writes.   In this magisterial book, Guinness notes that the most vehement and radical enemies assaulting the West are from within.   The root of the decline lies not just in the philosophical, ethical, cultural, economic, and technological but the deepest cause of all—the deteriorating condition of the roots of the animating force that once made the West the civilization it has been lies in the faiths that gave vitality and unity have become enervated and rejected entirely.   The West is now largely opposed to the faith that made it, and the intelligentsia in its lead society America are increasingly opposed to both the faith that made the West and the revolution that made America. Ignore it and the decline will be inevitable and irreversible.   Guinness makes four observations.   First, the West owes much to other civilizations and their ideas. The debt to the Greeks is primary. Second, this broad understanding of Christendom is not limited to Christendom proper. It includes the powerful Christian consensus that exerted its influence in many European and Western nations. Third, it is an article of Christian faith itself, and a matter of Christian realism and hope, that perfectibility is impossible in this life, and where there is failure there can and must be correction, forgiveness, reform, and renewal. Fourth, no statement of the centrality of the Christian faith to the West is complete without an equally clear acknowledgment of the centrality of Judaism to the Christian faith. The Christian faith made the West, and the Jewish and Christian faiths have been the central inspiration and dynamic of the West.   Guinness notes that there have been three things we can see clearly. First, secular liberalism has failed. Reason is now tainted. They have replaced God with things such as Marxism. C.S. Lewis foretold this in The Abolition of Man. Second, the renewal of faith is now seen as indispensable. People need three things: meaning, belonging and purpose. Faith provides roots, restraints and renewal for civilization. The West is a “cut flower” civilization—cut off from its roots it looks fine for a while but will not last. We need chains on our appetites. Third, there is a need for renewal. The biblical story is one of exile and return, rather than decline and fall. The alternative to going back to faith is to be focused on power. The will to become powerful is the predominant motivation according to Nietzsche. “We are at a showdown moment in Western Civilization." He referred to historian Arnold Toynbee who observed that a critical element to change is a creative minority.   There are three powerful impulses behind the surge of the philosophy of secularism over the past four centuries. First, there is the revolutionary impulse to secularism: We do not want God.” Second, there is the enlightenment impulse to secularism, which rose up parallel to the revolutionary impulse: We do not need God.”  Third there is a closely related but even more recent scientific, technological and evolutionary impulse to secularism, the Promethean impulse now out in the open: We can replace God (and be gods ourselves).”   The question for the West, and for America in particular, is more pointed. Can countries that pride themselves on being liberal, free, and open maintain that freedom without belief in God?   Guinness writes about the four waves in contemporary America: The Red Wave – Radical Marxism. The Rainbow Wave - The Sexual Revolution. The Black Wave – Radical Islamism and finally the Gold Wave – Corrupt Elitism.   Guinness notes that much of American Establishment still has no idea of the vast difference between the American Revolution and the opposing radical revolution advanced today.   Western civilization is spiritually exhausted and deeply divided. Its intellectual, political, and social territory is fractured along a hundred fault lines. The diverse legions of cultural Marxism and Critical Theory have emerged triumphant from their “long march” through the American institutions.   The nation that prides itself on the way it rose up to defeat two deadly ideologies…appears not to recognize that it faces the deadliest enemy of all: equally hostile ideologies that are threatening to overpower American citizens from within.   But Guinness does not leave us without hope. In the final chapter, Choose Freedom, he argues that the choice could be between the world’s three major families of faith, or philosophies and worldviews. The first family is the eastern (including Hinduism, Buddhism and the New Age movement. The second is the secularist (including atheism, agnosticism, naturalism and materialism). The third is the Abrahamic (including Judaism, the Christian faith and Islam). In light of Western history, the choice is more likely to be between a form of secular materialism that has descended from the Enlightenment and a partnership between the Jewish and Christian faiths that have been the central inspiration of the West.   One thing is certain, there is no sitting on the fence. Only the Jewish and Christian faiths, and their ideas and ideals that made the West at its best, can renew and remake the West at this momentous civilizational moment, and so lead all humanity forward towards a truly human-friendly future.   For those looking for a comprehensive analysis of the West’s current situation, I cannot recommend this book too highly. Buy it. Read it slowly and let the message sink in. Dr. Guinness looks at the West through the lens of his great learning and erudition, above all, his deep Christian faith.   You can buy the book  at Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Our-Civilizational-Moment-Waning-Worlds/dp/B0DL3LW558?dplnkId=02a7f48c-aef4-4c0e-b1ff-fee3249b4512&nodl=1

By Anna Rees PREMIER CHRISTIAN NEWS March 11, 2025   A member of the Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC) has criticised the process of choosing the next Archbishop of Canterbury, branding it “confusing” and “lacking in transparency”. Revd Dr Andrew Goddard raised his concerns, after the General Synod voted against changes to the decision-making process of the Crown Nominations Commission, submitted by the House of Bishops. The CNC are a group of church leaders and lay people who recommend candidates for vacant diocesan roles in the Church of England – such as bishops and archbishops. The CNC leads a discernment process over candidates submitted to it, and puts the chosen candidate forward to the King, via the Prime Minister. Unusually, the current choosing process for the next Archbishop of Canterbury will consider candidates nominated by the general public – provided they are ordained. The consultation runs from February 7 to March 28. The process also involves consulting various bodies within the church. A Vacancy in See Committee (ViSC) in each diocese elects members for the Crown Nominations Commission and provides it with a profile of their individual diocese’s needs. However - Goddard suggests that due process is not being followed the Canterbury diocese. He cites the failure and lack of attention paid to replace members of the existing 2022-2024 Vacancy in See Committee (ViSC) within the timeframe originally agreed, which led to a large number of vacancies. Goddard saw this failing as particularly significant, given that the Archbishop of Canterbury was set to retire. A second ViSC was formed in December, following Justin Welby’s resignation. Yet neither this nor the previous ViSC are being used. Instead, a third committee is being formed - overlapping with the introduction of new regulations around ViSC elections at the General Synod in February. Using the new Regulation would raise yet a further set of questions about the Canterbury process. This process has been criticised as being shrouded in mystery, as it is unclear whether the latest ViSC complies with the new regulations. Goddard states: “There appears to have been, and still remains, some considerable confusion and serious questions which need answering with no less than three different Vacancy in See Committees (ViSC) being in existence in the diocese since the vacancy was announced but with all of them potentially not compliant with the Regulation.” The nominations of three Canterbury representatives on the CNC will take place in the near future. However, new regulations stipulate that no male clergy in Canterbury diocese can be elected, in an attempt to balance the male-dominated CNC. The controversial new rule requires those elected by the ViSC to include the election of one clergywoman and one lay woman. Goddard says: “Uniquely, Canterbury is only electing three members so when this new rule combines with the rule that at least half of CNC members must be lay, this means that no male clergyperson can be elected.” John Dunnett, National Director, Church of England Evangelical Council (CEEC), said: “Time and again, we see that proper process is simply not being followed on significant issues such as these. Andrew’s analysis spells out why confidence and trust in the appointment of the next Archbishop of Canterbury could be undermined if due process is neglected.” END

By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor THE CHRISTIAN POST March 11, 2025   A Church of England diocese has introduced a new prayer guide stating that Christianity was historically propagated through “racist European ideologies.”    The "anti-racist toolkit," developed by the Diocese of Norwich's Racial Justice Action Group, and which advises clergy to move away from Eurocentric prayers, includes suggestions for addressing racial justice in church services, and is designed to align local parishes with the Church of England’s efforts to combat racism.   The guidance says parishes need to prepare for demographic shifts, particularly in rural East Anglia, where Norfolk remains about 94% white, according to The Telegraph.   Despite the region’s prevailing homogeneity, the toolkit talks about increasing diversity in schools and local communities, advising clergy to be more inclusive in their prayers, incorporating diverse languages and topics to reflect the changing population.   One specific recommendation encourages priests to create a “Collect for Racial Justice Sunday,” which includes prayers asking for repentance for historical wrongdoings and celebrating diversity.   The toolkit also provides an example prayer that refers to congregants as “a holy family, a rainbow people,” and directs clergy to external resources, such as the website PrayerCast, for ideas on prayers related to global issues.   Churches must embrace a metanoia—a complete shift in thinking—to see that strengthening marriages isn’t just ministry, it’s evangelism. Discover how this transformation can grow your church. Read More   Further, the guide suggests displaying images that represent diversity, even in parishes with little or no ethnic diversity.   The Rt. Rev. Jane Steen, Bishop of Lynn, supported the initiative, writing in the foreword that the toolkit’s measures are essential to ensure inclusion in an increasingly diverse society. She wrote that Norfolk’s hospitals, agriculture and other industries are strengthened by individuals whose origins lie outside the U.K.   The initiative follows recommendations from the denomination’s anti-racist task force established after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. In 2021, the Church’s General Synod endorsed the “From Lament to Action” report, which included steps to combat racism, including revisiting historical ties to the slave trade and removing monuments linked to colonialism and slavery.   The Rev. Ian Paul, associate minister at St. Nic’s, Nottingham, questioned the allocation of resources toward such efforts in an area that is overwhelmingly white. He referred to the shortage of clergy in many parishes, arguing that funds might be better spent addressing these immediate needs, as reported by the Telegraph.   END

by David G. Duggan © www.virtueonline.org March 6, 2025   While the world agonizes over Ukraine, Trump’s speech to Congress, and the unsolved mystery of the death of Gene Hackman and his 30-years younger wife Betsy Arakawa, as we enter Lent matters spiritual should be top-of-mind. In this regard, the death last week of the Rev. Dr. Martin E. Marty 3 weeks after his 97th birthday deserves note.   Dr. Marty was a longtime professor of church history at the University of Chicago’s divinity school (few know that the U of C got its start as Northern Baptist Seminary until John D. Rockefeller came around with mega-donations totaling nearly $35 million during his lifetime), but got his start as a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor in the Chicago suburbs. One of the few theological academics with practical experience in parish ministry, Dr. Marty traveled and lectured widely, finding time to edit The Christian Century, a monthly journal of “progressive Christianity,” write a bi-weekly newsletter Context, publish 60 books, hundreds of scholarly articles, essays, and columns and then deliver commencement addresses. He also served as a doctoral adviser to budding academics looking to add the gilt-and-maroon-edged diploma to their CVs.   In the ‘60s, Dr. Marty was active in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam movements, founding “Clergy and Laity Concerned,” sort of an antipode to Billy Graham’s public indoctrination by Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Conceding his march to Selma, invited by Dr. King, and as potential Vietnam-era cannon-fodder, I have found academics’ anti-war protests troubling: protected by tenure, they get the cheap grace of not having to sacrifice for their beliefs.   I heard Dr. Marty speak several times: once at the Newberry Library some 20 years ago just after Martin Luther’s 130-volume opus was boiled down to 30 CDs; and another time at a Northside Chicago parish where he discussed the religious movements which derived from Chicago’s 1893 Columbian exposition (including the introduction of Hinduism to the States). Within those 130 volumes, Luther defended a married clergy as consistent with Scripture (cf. Matthew 8:14–15; Mark 1:29–31; Luke 4: 38-39; Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law; which sort of implies that he was married). I asked whether there was anything in those 130 volumes dealing with homosexual clergy which Luther himself had encountered during a pilgrimage to Rome. My recollection of Marty’s answer was that there was nothing.   More recently, with Dr. Marty I have been participating in a zoom Bible-study coordinated by my local Lutheran parish. I am not now, nor can ever become a Lutheran: I worship Jesus, and even if his apostle Luther is as responsible for my Christian faith as anyone in the last 500 years, I cannot bring myself to adhere to a denomination so embedded in a Germanic culture which inter alia gave us World Wars I and II. Not that there is any virtue in the Episcopal denomination of my upbringing, but the shibboleth which distinguishes Lutherans from Anglicans–among Lutherans, the only schism is heresy; among Episcopalians, the only heresy is schism– is at best a glib glossing over of a theological divide which hasn’t been bridged in those 500 years.   Dr Marty had suffered a fall recently and had moved from his John Hancock Bldg apartment to Minnesota, closer to the state of his origin, Nebraska, which punches well above its weight in theology and law, two disciplines which I follow (legal scholars Roscoe Pound and Karl Llewellyn were cornhuskers as was Harold deWolf, Martin Luther King’s dissertation advisor). Martin Emil Marty, Ph.D. and servant of the Risen Christ: RIP. We shall not see your likes again.   END

By Chuck Collins www.virtueonline.org March 8, 2025   ASH WEDNESDAY is very strange for Anglicans. First, the passage from Matthew chapter 6 is read that tells us to keep our religion private, not like the Pharisees who love to be seen by others. Then we smudge ashes on foreheads to announce our piety like neon flashing signs. And what’s with the pronouncement,“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return”? This was God’s punishment for Adam’s disobedience in Genesis 3 that is hopeless even for those of us who are not already depressed. No, I need to hear, “Remember that Jesus came to seek and save the lost!”  or “Remember that he was crushed for your iniquities.” “Christian holiness finds its ground not in human mortality,” says Liam Beadle, “but in the sure and certain hope of the new creation.” The practice of imposing ashes was first introduced in the church by Pope Urban II in 1091 who stated, “On Ash Wednesday, everyone - clergy and laity, men and women - will receive ashes.” In the span of church history, it is a relatively recent practice. The practice was abruptly ended by the 16th century English reformers and excluded from the Book of Common Prayer, never to be seen officially again until the 1979 Prayer Book revision - 1979! The imposition of ashes was stopped because the reformers wanted to distance the Church of England from the Medieval Catholic understandings of penance and compulsory auricular confession to a priest.  The reformers opposed the blessing of material objects, such as ashes, especially when this suggested that blessing automatically conveys grace apart from faith, and they recognized the contradiction of Matthew chapter 6 with the very visible sign of piety. Imposing ashes was left out of all Church of England Prayer Books (1549, 1552, 1559, and 1662) and replaced with a service called “A Commination” for the first day of Lent. Bishop Nicolas Ridley, in a famous sermon, called the imposition of ashes idolatry because of its potential to separate a meaningless devotional act from the alluring love of God.  It is a historically new Anglican practice that started in small ways and places by the ritualist marching band that followed the 1830s Oxford Movement, and then gradually gained traction to the point where in the 1979 Prayer Book it is wildly prominent. Ask any Episcopalian or Anglican today and you will hear that the imposition of ashes is the central feature of our Ash Wednesday service. And even though the 2019 Anglican (ACNA) Prayer Book claimed to be faithful to the 1662 standard, like many Roman Catholic carryovers into the 1979 Prayer Book, the practice of imposing ashes has a front-and-center place in the American Anglican Prayer Book. Archbishop Thomas Cranmer in 1548, the year after King Henry VIII died, secured an order from the Privy Council to forbid Candlemas candles, the use of ashes on Ash Wednesday, and Palm Sunday palms. Even though it was a directive only for Canterbury diocese, it signaled the end of the Medieval superstitious practices in the Church of England. Ash Wednesday has always been a part of Anglicanism (called in the 1662 Prayer Book “A Commination, or Denouncing of God’s anger and judgments against sinners, With certain prayers to be used on the first day of Lent”), albeit without any mention of imposing ashes.  This beautiful and simple service was written to take the communicant from sin and repentance to grace and gratitude. Just looking at the very short homily supplied in the Commination that follows the ten curses (1662 Book of Common Prayer), those who are crushed by the sinfulness of their wrong-doing are led to the abundance of God’s grace and mercy for repentant sinners. It’s beautiful; it’s the gospel! This is the way to begin Lent! "For such is the force of simplicity that it lifts men's minds towards divine things more than a long series of ceremonies united by however good a meaning" (“Of Ceremonies” from Saepius Officio,1897). This week many will attend Ash Wednesday services which will include the imposition of ashes on foreheads, and many very faithful Christians will participate. We will be reminded that we will all die, and the message will be preached that we need to get our acts together before Easter. May we also be reminded that God’s mercy is everlasting and new every morning. Remember, we are not left in the dust, but we are, by God’s grace, destined to be sons and daughters of the King of Heaven in his New Creation.  This seems to me to be a better way to prepare for Easter, by taking sin very seriously, but always mindful that crushing guilt is meant to lead us to grace and gratitude. “Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, O God, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” “Ashes in a Time of Plague,” Samuel L. Bray https://www.pbs.org.uk/.../09/faith-worship88-website.pdf “No Imposition: The Commination and Lent,” Liam Beadle

Nashotah House Receives ACNA Prayer Book // Marty E. Martin has died // We should not ask, ‘What is wrong with the world?’ for that diagnosis has already been given. Rather we should ask, “What has happened to salt and light? – John Stott   Never in the history of its existence has the Church of England been more influenced by the rule of women, and never in the history of its existence has the Church of England been more at risk of collapse. – Aaron Edwards   Ultimately, we have a generation who has not only misrepresented Jesus in His sovereignty but has also robbed him of His masculinity. We have not seen Him as our all-powerful King, nor have we seen Him as a masculine Man. As a result, we have produced a version of Christianity that lives up to the Christ we have created—weak, effeminate, delicate, and soft. However, this is not the Christ of the Bible. – Dale Partridge   The era that we are living in is post-Christian, but not post-religious. The post-Christian world is not ending up in atheistic nihilism, as many had assumed; rather, it is re-paganizing. – James Wood   The Church of England ought to be a shining light to the nation and the world, representing truth, beauty, love, grace, order, joy, and peace. But instead of glorifying God by upholding His Word against the scoffers who hate what that Word says and implies, they have chosen instead to align themselves with their enemies, trading light for darkness, selling their birth-right for a pot of stew, denying the very Word of God in order to warm their hands by the fire with strangers who do not mean well. – Aaron Edwards   The American church today is at a crossroads. While the kingdom of God will go on, its future in this country is not certain. The Great Dechurching could well be the American church’s most crucial moment and greatest opportunity. – Ryan P. Burge   Dear Brothers and Sisters, www.virtueonlione.org March 7, 2025   Is denominationalism dead? For Generation Z it is a timely question. Denominations define doctrine. This is not a sacrosanct issue for generations Y and Z and Nones, so defining beliefs by denominational loyalty might be meaningless.   Furthermore, are the doctrinal disputes of previous generations that so haunted many of us, relevant in today’s techno world of Facebook, TikTok and X. The Pope is trying to modernize the church by downplaying doctrines and scrapping sacred moral positions in order to make the RCC more relevant. But the pushback has been startling, and he may have made a strategic mistake. There is a rise of orthodoxy in Catholicism that might give pause for the next pope to reconsider the pathway his predecessor took.   Do generations of young adults really care that the PCA broke away from the PCUSA or ACNA from TEC? Do they have sleepless nights worrying about the Lord’s return and will they be left behind? Will they be moved by which Prayer Book we should all be using or how to cross oneself? Are they agonizing over whether they are saved by grace or good works? Or if salvation even really matters!   Or are their concerns really about whether they can freely express their views without being cancelled. Will their freedoms be their tomorrow morning when they wake up? Is it more to the point that we are at a civilizational moment with the waning of the West and the War of the Worlds, outlined in Os Guinness’s new book?   Perhaps it is not a simple either/or, but whether we like it or not, the universe has moved under our feet and we are no longer in Kansas.   Do we need new strategies for evangelism and discipleship? Are the old evangelistic paradigms now long gone, and no longer recoverable, perhaps a good thing?   Recently I wrote that only one percent of churches in America are effectively engaged in evangelism. That came as a shock to many readers. If we don’t evangelize, we will die. Liberal and progressive churches are already on life support, but evangelical churches are not far behind. This is not your parents’ church, and kids don’t automatically follow in their parents’ footsteps. There are multitudes of grieving parents who have watched their children abandon the faith they were raised in (think the Campolos); many have drifted away forever; many have inexplicably committed suicide, died of fentanyl and the list goes on. There are more trails of tears than tv shows.   I watched Pastor Rick Warren in a video, who lost a son to suicide, explain why pain was necessary for growth in Christian character. He is a compelling speaker. “You don’t get over it, you get through it.” Or as James Blunt in his new recording, Monsters sings, “You’re not my father, I’m not your son, we’re just two grown men saying goodbye.”   Or is it as one blogger recently noted; “Something extraordinary is happening in American spiritual life. As traditional religious institutions decline, new forms of meaning-making have emerged, creating what scholars call a New Civil Religion. This contemporary spiritual landscape is characterized by its provision of meaning, purpose, community, and ritual outside traditional religious frameworks.”   Perhaps this explains why the Church of England is irrelevant to 98% of the British public, or why Christianity in the rest of Europe is in decline (while Islam is on the rise) and why Nones are the fastest growing “religious” group in America today.   Doing things the same old way hoping for a different result is a dead end. Someone should tell Franklin Graham that crusades don’t work anymore. That was his father’s generation. The times they are a changing. Churches can’t rely on methods and techniques that worked in the past. We live in the world of AI, hamstrung only by our imagination.   We do know that people are drawn to a church that appears authentic and real. They won’t be concerned about how the Eucharist is delivered, or even if the right words are said. They probably don’t know them anyway. The church will be color blind, race blind. Our Hispanic pastor was born in Newark, NJ where turning the other cheek could mean a bullet in your face. He still wrestles with what that means even though he is now a safe distance from that world.   From the pulpit he shares his conversion story from the rough and tumble streets of Newark to the safe climes of Drew University, but he never forgets how the Lord of the universe stepped into his life and saved him. That is seared in his mind. It consumes his evangelism and his style as he reaches out to a diverse community. Nothing is cast in stone only the timeless message of the gospel.   *****   In a few short weeks, a group of orthodox, mostly evangelical primates of the Anglican Communion, meeting on the acronym GAFCON (Global Anglican Future Conference) will meet in Plano, Texas to consider their role in the communion. These primates have formally broken with Canterbury.   The next-generation gathering of GAFCON primates have come out with a statement soundly rejecting proposed reforms by the Anglican Communion.   The G25 Mini Conference is at a very crucial time in the life of the movement, as they gather for the first time since the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to consider how GAFCON will continue to lead the renewal of the Anglican Communion, according to chairman and GAFCON primate Rwanda Archbishop Laurent Mbanda.   “For this reason, we will be convening an extended Primates Council meeting, where our agenda will focus on how to strengthen our fellowship with authentic Anglicans, both those who are contesting the faith in liberal dioceses, as well as those who have found refuge in dioceses established and authenticated by GAFCON,” he said. You can read more here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/gafcon-rejects-anglican-communion-reforms-cites-doctrinal-drift   *****   In what looks to be a case of Dé·jà vu, a second Episcopal bishop, John Taylor Bishop of Los Angeles, has publicly slammed Donald Trump following a verbally tough exchange between the president and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office of the White House.   The first was Washington Bishop Marianne Budde who rebuked Donald Trump from the pulpit of Washington National Cathedral over his immigration and other policies. Outraged by her comments, Trump asked her to apologize. She refused.   Taylor opined that seeing Putin's boys bully a besieged freedom fighter in the Oval Office was humiliating for every American. “Surely this crosses the line, even for the diehards. Are there really no Republicans out there who have the courage to stand up and say: All Americans should be deeply ashamed of what he has done in our name, and deeply ashamed of how he did it. No?” You can read more here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/los-angeles-episcopal-bishop-slams-president-trump-over-oval-office-debacle   Ironically Taylor is the former director of the Nixon Presidential Library. Nixon was the acolyte of "realpolitik": accepting the world as it is and doing what you can to improve it on the edges.   *****   Has the Sexual Revolution destroyed the mainline churches? On any reading, the sexual revolution, begun in the 60s, has morphed into the most powerful moral force upending 4,000 years of sexual teaching, overturning the ancient binary tradition of male and female.   Os Guinness, an Anglican and social critic notes in his new book, Our Civilizational Moment, the Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds notes, “this smashing of the categories is not the ultimate goal of the sexual revolution. Its spiritual elite have a higher goal in mind: to strive towards ultimate harmony beyond all categories. In aiming for this state, the elite revolutionaries are attempting to return both paganism and sexual androgyny to their primitive pedestal and to license every possible type of sexuality as an expression of freedom---with polyamory now half in the door and pedophilia and zoophilia (or bestiality) well on their way.”   The sexual revolutionaries are out to subvert thousands of years of “patriarchal” societies (including the four thousand years of both the Jewish roots and the Christian flowering), he declares.   Guinness blasts both the Episcopal Church and the Church of England. “Much of the Christian church did not need to be overcome. Significant branches, such as the Episcopal Church, now closely followed by a large wing of the Church of England led by their progressive bishops and archbishops, rushed forward to embrace the sexual revolution, and enlist on “the right side of history.” Simultaneously, they cut themselves off from their own tradition and from the majority of their fellow believers around the world, and they suicidally emptied their own pews. You can read more here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/how-the-sexual-revolution-destroyed-the-mainline-churches   *****   Nashotah House Dean Lauren Whitnah hosted some 61 bishops, priests, deacons, professors, and seminarians from across the country for a ceremony honoring the addition of ACNA’s 2019 edition of the Book of Common Prayer to the Underwood Prayer Book Collection. It joins rare and historic prayer books dating back to the 16th century that are available for research purposes.   Three current and former archbishops of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) gathered February 25 at Nashotah House in honor of their denomination’s prayer book. You can read more here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/acna-s-2019-prayer-book-joins-nashotah-collection   *****   The Diocese of Dallas has announced the call for a new bishop coadjutor to replace retiring Bishop George Sumner. A slate of three candidates for the diocese’s bishop coadjutor has emerged:  They are: The Rev. William Carroll, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Longview, Texas; The Rt. Rev. Fraser Lawton, bishop assistant in the Diocese of Dallas and rector of the Church of St. Dunstan in Mineola, Texas; The Very Rev. Rob Price, dean of St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas, Texas. By all accounts they are orthodox, but the kicker will be if the evangelically driven diocese will be able to elect a bishop who won’t go along with Resolution B012, and if they do not, will that bishop obtain consents from the HOD and HOB or will it be another debacle like the Diocese of Florida that is still without a permanent bishop? We shall see.   ***** A former archbishop of Canterbury is among a number of clergy facing possible disciplinary action over safeguarding failures after an abuse report which prompted Justin Welby's resignation, the Church of England has announced.   Lord George Carey, who still sits in the upper chamber, was named in the Makin review, which concluded abuse carried out for decades by Christian camp leader John Smyth was known about and not acted upon by various people within the Church.   Lord Carey resigned as a priest in December following an investigation into the Church of England's handling of a separate sexual abuse case. He is one of 10 clergy named by the Church's national safeguarding team (NST) on Tuesday as people they are seeking to bring disciplinary proceedings against over potential failures in safeguarding.   Ironically, the archbishop who should have resigned over multiple charges of failed safeguarding, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, has steadfastly refused to go, and now presides as a lame duck leader over the Church of England, temporarily replacing Archbishop Justin Welby.   *****   The Church of England continues to cultivate the seeds of its own demise with such unerring success that sometimes you wonder if it is deliberate, writes Dr. Aaron Edwards, a theology lecturer at Cliff College, who was dismissed for “misconduct” after posting a tweet defending Christian sexual ethics.   He wrote; At a recent Anglican Synod, the Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, broke down in tears. Why was the Bishop of London moved to tears? Was it because of the utter lack of faith in so many modern churches? Was it because of the catastrophic decline of the Church of England in our time? Or was it due to the hundreds of thousands of aborted babies every year in the very nation to which that Church is called? None of the above. She was moved to tears because of “micro-aggressions” and “institutional barriers” against women within the Church of England.   “It’s difficult to describe just what those culturally Marxist terms of the Zeitgeist communicate at such a time as this. This is, after all, a time in which women are “permitted” to teach and exercise authority over men in the church as preachers, vicars, and even as bishops, with many even calling for a first female archbishop.”    He writes; “Never in the history of its existence has the Church of England been more influenced by the rule of women, and never in the history of its existence has the Church of England been more at risk of collapse. Yet it is the apparent ongoing raft of subjective “micro-aggressions” against women deemed to be the greatest cause of ecclesial harm.”   You can read his brilliant take down, A Lament for the Church of England here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/a-lament-for-the-church-of-england   *****   On the CULTURE WARS front, a new poll shows most Americans oppose transgender participation in women's sports and gender care for kids.   A recent survey reveals that nearly half of Americans believe the U.S. has overstepped in permitting male, trans-identified athletes to compete in women's sports, alongside substantial opposition to medical interventions for children facing gender dysphoria.   Conducted by The New York Times/Ipsos, the poll gathered responses from 2,128 American adults between January 2 and January 10.   When respondents were asked if they felt that “Society has gone too far in accommodating transgender people,” 49% responded positively. In contrast, 21% agreed with the statement that “Society has not gone far enough in accommodating transgender people,” while 28% thought that “Society has achieved a reasonable balance in accommodating transgender people.” You can read more here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/poll-shows-most-americans-oppose-transgender-participation-in-women-s-sports-and-gender-care-for-kid   *****   U.S. Christianity’s downturn is leveling off , but the Roman Catholic Church faces precipitous decline, according to a comprehensive Pew Research Center survey published in late February.   Catholicism loses 8.4 members for every convert it gains through ‘religious switching’, writes Jule Gomes, a Vatican-based reporter.   The decades-long decline in Christianity across the U.S. has stalled, yet Catholics are still leaving in significant numbers, according to Pew.   The religiously unaffiliated population — who have also come to be known as “nones” — has leveled off; the Christian share of the population after years of downturn has been relatively stable since 2019, the Religious Landscape Study (RLS) reported.   The study, which is the largest single survey of its kind and was conducted over seven months in 2023-24, found that 62% of U.S. adults identify as Christians (40% of whom identify as Protestants and 19% as Catholics). You can read more here: https://www.virtueonline.org/post/u-s-christianity-s-downturn-levels-off-but-catholic-church-faces-precipitous-decline   *****   Who are evangelicals? There are about 78 million evangelicals in America, according to Pew Research Center’s massive new survey of the religious landscape released on Wednesday. Most are white, Republican, and say religion is very important to them.   But not all.   The study—considered the most comprehensive look at religion in the United States, with more than 36,000 people filling out a 116-question survey in all 50 states—shows significant evangelical variety. Evangelicals are diverse: racially, politically, economically, and even in terms of religious practice. You can read more here: https://www.christianitytoday.com/2025/02/who-are-evangelicals-pew-study/   *****   On a personal note, VOL recognizes the 98th birthday of the former Episcopal Bishop of South Carolina, the Rt. Rev. Dr. C. FitzSimons Allison . The evangelical bishop has authored six books and resides with his wife Martha to whom he has been married for 75 years, in Georgetown, SC. He is known for his role in the Anglican realignment, which led to his participation in the controversial consecration in 2000 of two bishops opposed to the blessing of same-sex unions by the Episcopal Church, that took place in Singapore. He serves as a retired bishop of the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina in the Anglican Church in North America since 2022.   *****   A notable death took place this past week. Martin E. Marty was 97, and his death could be interpreted as the end of an era. For roughly six decades, Marty was recognized as the leading authority on religion in America. He wrote 60 books and thousands of articles and reviews. Marty was president of various academic societies, and held administrative posts and memberships on boards. At the height of his career, Marty was often cited in national media and advised presidents Carter and Clinton.   He was a leading proponent of liberal Christianity. “The noise of conflict” was a frequent Marty topic. He led a research project on fundamentalism and lectured on “hardline” religion. His attention to Christian tradition was sobered by analysis of institutional fractures because of “culture wars.” Marty, who published some 60 books in all, served for a half-century as an editor and columnist for the Christian Century.   *****   “The truth about the Enneagram turned my blood cold,” writes Christina Lynn Wallace at her substack. The Enneagram takes our eyes off of the God in whose image we are made and gets us contemplating how we experience that image through tools which do not point us to Him in the first but rather the last instance. You can read her take here: https://christinalynnwallace.substack.com/p/the-truth-about-the-enneagram-that?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true   *****   VOL’s website is fully up and running. Over the next few weeks, we will place over 35,000 stories in the archives. Please bear with us. A transition like this is time consuming and costly and we could use some financial assistance to place the archives. We have specialists and consultants who must be paid who are making the transition possible.   With VOL’s new website you can more easily navigate to areas of interest.   Please consider a tax-deductible donation. A PayPal donation link can be found here:   DONATE | Virtue Online If you are more inclined with old fashioned checks, (as I am), you can send your donation to:   VIRTUEONLINE P.O. Box 111 Shohola, PA 18458   Warmly in Christ, David

Catholicism loses 8.4 members for every convert it gains through ‘religious switching’   By JULES GOMES March 6, 2025   The decades-long decline in Christianity across the U.S. has stalled, yet Catholics are still leaving in significant numbers, according to a comprehensive Pew Research Center survey published in late February.   The religiously unaffiliated population — who have also come to be known as “nones” — has leveled off; the Christian share of the population after years of downturn has been relatively stable since 2019, the Religious Landscape Study (RLS) reported.   The study, which is the largest single survey of its kind and was conducted over seven months in 2023-24, found that 62% of U.S. adults identify as Christians (40% of whom identify as Protestants and 19% as Catholics).   The RLS found that the number of U.S. adults identifying as Christians had dropped from 2007 (78%) and 2014 (71%), but the Christian share of the adult population has been relatively stable since 2019, hovering between 60% and 64%.   Big Deal “If you look to the long term, it’s a story of decline in American religion,” said Gregory Smith, a senior associate director of research at Pew. “But it’s a completely different story if you look at the short term, which is a story of stability over the last four or five years.   Much of the shift is among young, conservative white males, says David Campbell, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame noted. Ryan Burge, a political scientist at Eastern Illinois University, agreed.   “We’re entering a new era of the American religious landscape,” he said, adding that the growth of the “nones” has “either slowed or stopped completely, and that’s a big deal.”   A significant exception to the decline of religiously affiliated adults is the Catholic Church, which continues to hemorrhage members through what the survey labels “religious switching,” a process of moving to another denomination or choosing to leave the church altogether.   Catholicism Nosedives “For every U.S. adult who has become a Catholic after being raised in some other religion or without a religion, there are 8.4 adults who say they were raised in the Catholic faith but who no longer describe themselves as Catholics,” the RLS found.   In contrast, only 1.8 people have left Protestantism for every person who converted to it after having been raised in another religious group or in no religion, Pew reported, noting that “the ratio for Catholicism is even more lopsided.”   The survey elaborated on the nosedive in the Catholic population:   Catholics have experienced the greatest net losses due to switching. About three-in-ten U.S. adults (30.2%) say they were raised Catholic. But 43% of the people raised Catholic no longer identify as Catholic, meaning that 12.8% of all U.S. adults are former Catholics.   Conversely, only 1.5% of U.S. adults converted to Catholicism after being raised in another denomination or no religion, bringing the Catholic population among U.S. adults to 18.9%.   New Reformation “This is a 1530’s Europe level crisis, and Catholics can’t put their heads in the sand and pretend everything is awesome. We need a new Catholic Reformation,” Crisis Magazine Editor in Chief Eric Sammons lamented on X.   “With respect to my beloved Catholic friends, I don’t know how one could read the Pew report and come away with a triumphalist Catholicism that is very prevalent on X,” wrote Dr. Andrew T. Walker, professor of ethics and public theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.   “I should add that, yes, in the same report, you can find very unpleasant things about evangelicalism, too, but it does seem to indicate that Protestants have less of a discipleship problem than Catholicism does,” Walker tweeted.   Catholic numbers have also taken a hit among the Hispanic population, who hail from a predominantly Catholic background. Overall, 36% of Catholics in the U.S. are Hispanic.   Hispanic adults identifying as Catholic sharply declined from 58% to 42%, Pew reported.   “We have reached the point where most Hispanics are not Catholic, and we’ve been there for some time now,” Gregory A. Smith told the Catholic media outlet Crux. “The Catholic share of the Hispanic population in the United States has been declining rapidly for a long time.”   Evangelical Gains While Protestant churches also lost more people than they gained through religious switching, the losses were significantly smaller, with 13.7% of U.S. adults no longer identifying as Protestants, compared with 7.6% of Americans who were not raised Protestant but now identify as such.   Among Protestants, nondenominational evangelicals have bucked the trend, with more American adults switching to nondenominational churches than those leaving such churches.   While 1.7% of U.S. adults who were raised as nondenominational evangelicals have left, more than three times as many now switched to nondenominal evangelical churches after having been raised in another way (5.7%).   Among those who were raised Protestant, 75% remained Protestant as adults; only 22% of people raised as Protestants quit their churches to maintain no religious affiliation. In contrast, only 57% of those who were raised Catholic remain Catholic as adults.   About 14% of people raised as Catholics converted to Protestantism as adults, and a quarter of those who were raised Catholic now say they are religiously unaffiliated (24%), the survey found.   Baptists, Lutherans, Pentecostals, and nondenominational evangelicals were reported to have among the highest retention rates of Protestant denominations. More than half of Americans who were raised Baptist (54%) remained Baptists as adults; 47% raised Lutheran remained Lutherans; and 45% raised Pentecostal or nondenominational remained that way as adults.   Catholic Decline Worsens The RLS released in 2014 also reported a precipitous decline of membership in the Catholic Church, stating:   Within Christianity the greatest net losses, by far, have been experienced by Catholics. Nearly one-third of American adults (31.7%) say they were raised Catholic. Among that group, fully 41% no longer identify with Catholicism.   This means that 12.9% of American adults are former Catholics, while just 2% of U.S. adults have converted to Catholicism from another religious tradition. No other religious group in the survey has such a lopsided ratio of losses to gains.   In contrast, the 2014 RLS also noted that the evangelical Protestant tradition is the only major Christian group in the survey that has gained more members than it has lost through religious switching. Roughly 10% of U.S. adults now identify with evangelical Protestantism after having been raised in another tradition, which more than offsets the roughly 8% of adults who were raised as evangelicals but have left.   Loss of Faith The Public Religion Research Institute’s Health of Congregations Survey (2023) explained that loss of belief was the primary reason for Catholics leaving the church, with 69% of former Catholics citing it.   Nearly 39% of Catholics left because of clerical sex abuse scandals, 36% because of negative religious teachings about LGBTQ people, and 14% because of a traumatic event in their lives.   The U.S. Catholic Church spent over $5 billion on victim compensation and attorneys’ fees in lawsuits over the clerical sexual abuse of minors between 2004 and 2023, The Stream reported. It now spends an average of $36,399,720 every year to protect minors from predatory clergy.   A quarter of former Catholics (26%) cited growing up in a family that was never that religious as a reason they left the church;15% left because their church or congregation became too politicized. Today, 50% of former Catholics are religiously unaffiliated, and 25% are evangelical or Protestant, the PRRI survey found.   “We know that many of the dechurched have left because of abusive leadership and failing character in their leaders,” authors Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan P. Burge wrote in The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back?   Church leaders have a greater burden in front of the Lord than the rest of those in the faith.   The American church today is at a crossroads. While the kingdom of God will go on, its future in this country is not certain. The Great Dechurching could well be the American church’s most crucial moment and greatest opportunity.   Originally published in The Stream.   Dr. Jules Gomes, (BA, BD, MTh, PhD), has a doctorate in biblical studies from the University of Cambridge. Currently a Vatican-accredited journalist based in Rome, he is the author of five books and several academic articles. Gomes lectured at Catholic and Protestant seminaries and universities and was canon theologian and artistic director at Liverpool Cathedral.

COMMENTARY   By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org March 5, 2025   On any reading, the sexual revolution, begun in the 60s, has morphed into the most powerful moral force upending 4,000 years of sexual teaching, overturning the ancient binary tradition of male and female.   But as Os Guinness, in his new book, Our Civilizational Moment, the Waning of the West and the War of the Worlds notes, “this smashing of the categories is not the ultimate goal of the sexual revolution. Its spiritual elite have a higher goal in mind: to strive towards ultimate harmony beyond all categories. In aiming for this state, the elite revolutionaries are attempting to return both paganism and sexual androgyny to their primitive pedestal and to license every possible type of sexuality as an expression of freedom---with polyamory now half in the door and pedophilia and zoophilia (or bestiality) well on their way.”   The sexual revolutionaries are out to subvert thousands of years of “patriarchal” societies (including the four thousand years of both the Jewish roots and the Christian flowering).   As Guinness observes; “at its deepest, this vision is religious and not secular, as many gurus have made clear. It looks far beyond immediate sexual freedom. Its supreme goal is to erase all distinction and fuse all opposites, especially between male and female, in order to attain the primordial cosmic wholeness and unity that has long been sought by pagan priests and shamans. Sexual androgyny is the key to this quest for both the religious and the secular.”   The revolutionaries knew, of course, that to win, they would have to win by overcoming all who prized the differences between male and female—above all, three major enemies: the patriarchal family and the Jewish and Christian faiths---and therefore enforced the rigid straightjacket of sexual stereotypes (“gender fundamentalism”). The revolutionaries would sideline parents, for instance, by introducing sex education, drag queen shows, a general sexualization of women, and sexual grooming of children at the earliest age, making an end run around parents and parental responsibilities. “We’re coming for your children,” as the drag queen shows now boast. And in more and more areas, the idea grew that the state, not parents, should be the authority over children, with schools now hiding critical information from parents.   Guinness, an Anglican and social critic, blasts both the Episcopal Church and the Church of England. “Much of the Christian church did not need to be overcome. Significant branches, such as the Episcopal Church, now closely followed by a large wing of the Church of England led by their progressive bishops and archbishops, rushed forward to embrace the sexual revolution, and enlist on “the right side of history.” Simultaneously, they cut themselves off from their own tradition and from the majority of their fellow believers around the world, and they suicidally emptied their own pews.   “Just as the rainbow as the symbol of human Pride overcame the rainbow as the symbol of divine Promise, so the Anglican House of Bishops turned the teaching of the Bible and Christian tradition upside down in blessing homosexual couples.  What was once pronounced to be deviance and sin is now pronounced to be the church’s failure to relate to faithful marginalized people, because through being marginalized, their voices were unacknowledged, ignored, and silenced, and the church colluded in this sin.”   “Liberation” instead of condemnation, or condemnation of the former judgement, now turned into the new liberation. Such a clear inversion of Christian truth as an abject surrender to the spirit of the age will be obvious to future ages, for as Dean Inge remarked in a lecture in 1911, “Whoever marries the spirit of the age will find himself a widower in the next.”   Earlier liberals cut off the branch on which they themselves were sitting; today’s liberal clerics cut off the branch on which almost everyone is sitting.   Today, there are Church of England parishes with the Pride symbol on their altar cloths. This is to pour blasphemy upon blasphemy.   The end result is social chaos such as we are seeing in transgenderism and sexual anarchy today.   The Episcopal Church is rapidly heading downhill, (and, as it appears so is the Church of England), not just because the demographic figures demonstrate it, and evangelism is all but dead; it is the attempt to reverse the God-given moral order that most clearly touches and angers the heart of God.   God will not withhold his hand of judgement forever. The church and its leaders will one day have to give an account, and the “doctrine” of niceness won’t cut it.   Reaping what we sow is as timeless as the seasons, and so is the finality of God’s mercy. END https://www.amazon.com/Our-Civilizational-Moment-Waning-Worlds/dp/B0DL3LW558?dplnkId=02a7f48c-aef4-4c0e-b1ff-fee3249b4512&nodl=1

By David W. Virtue, DD www.virtueonline.org March 4, 2025   A next-generation gathering of GAFCON primates later this month in Plano, TX has come out with a statement soundly rejecting proposed reforms by the Anglican Communion.   The G25 Mini Conference is at a very crucial time in the life of the movement, as they gather for the first time since the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to consider how GAFCON will continue to lead the renewal of the Anglican Communion.   “For this reason, we will be convening an extended Primates Council meeting, where our agenda will focus on how to strengthen our fellowship with authentic Anglicans, both those who are contesting the faith in liberal dioceses, as well as those who have found refuge in dioceses established and authenticated by GAFCON,” said Rwanda chairman and GAFCON primate Archbishop Laurent Mbanda..   The Anglican future conference issued an official statement rejecting proposed reforms to the Anglican communion citing a weakening of core doctrines.   The Council, in an official statement criticized the December 2024 report of the Inter Anglican Standing Commission on Unity, Faith and Order saying it sanctifies the revisionist theologies of the sitting provinces and dioceses.   Further into the statement it acknowledges the merit of rotating leadership within the Primates Council and Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) but asserts that the proposed restructuring of the instruments of communion fails to achieve genuine renewal.  The statement specifically condemns the report's call to embrace diverse locally authorized prayer books including those deviating from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer teaching on human sexuality. This only repeats and reaffirms the errors of successive archbishops of Canterbury.   The official statement accused them of failing to prevent the tearing of the fabric of the Anglican communion. According to the statement, Scripture is paramount, “the Bible is very clear that those who embrace immoral behavior will not inherit the Kingdom of God.”   The statement emphasizes the centrality of Biblical teaching on sin and salvation and claims to represent 85% of the world's 85 million Anglicans.   Furthermore, it asserts that the only Instrument of Communion that ultimately matters is the Word of God.   The organization, in convening the G25 conference in Plano Texas, will discuss its continued leadership in the renewal of the Anglican communion. It also expresses solidarity with the Global South Fellowship of Anglican (GSFA) churches emphasizing their shared desire for Anglicans to speak the truth in love.   END